In a family of earlier patents, and pending applications, including U.S. Pat. No. 4,162,610 and Reissue No. 32,655; U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,548,510; 4,769,796; 4,783,800, and others, there are disclosed a number of different electronic schedulers and systems for more efficiently managing the use of time by both individuals and businesses. In such schedulers, a number of appointments are entered and stored in a memory for a number of different time periods in the future, and are retained in retrievable form as a rapidly accessable record of a user or users future committments. At the convenience of the user, the schedules of appointments for any selected time period, or periods, are selectively retrieved from the memory and communicated by any one of a visual display, a printed record, or an audible announcement. Alternatively, or additionally, a subschedule of free or available time slots are selectively determined from the memory, for any selected future time period, to assist the user in making, and confirming, a new appointment in the future.
Additionally, in such earlier patents and applications, any of the appointments stored in the memory can be randomly cancelled or rescheduled, by erasing the memory for that time slot and reentering a new appointment for a different time.
However, the occurance of an unexpected event, such as an emergency event, or other of greater priority, often makes it necessary for an office to cancel an entire series of appointments on a given day, or time period, and to reschedule each of such cancelled appointments to other times that are more convenient, and available to both parties.
Conversely, it is often necessary that an individual scheduled for an appointment with an office, is required to cancel that appointment, or reschedule it to a different time. The rescheduling of such appointments, whether by a office, or an individual, is often difficult and time consuming, particularly where the office is very busy, receiving many calls daily, and dealing with many persons during a typical working day. Furthermore, where the need arises to cancel or reschedule an appointment arises at a time after normal business hours, the prior appointment is often missed, or the rescheduling is delayed until that office reopens for busines on the following business day, often inconveniencing the individual or the office. Rescheduling an entire series of appointments for a day, or other time period, is often a particularly difficult an time consuming chore for many busy offices, such as those of Chiropractors, Dentists, Attorneys, and other professional and business persons, whose active practices include many appointments with different persons during a typical working day. Present practice followed requires that an office employee, such as a nurse, or receptionist, or appointment clerk, telephone each such patient, client, or customer, and individually reschedule each such person for a new appointment at a different time that is convenient to that person and also available to that office. Quite often the multiple appointment rescheduling is very time consuming, often resulting in "doubling up" of appointments, or prolonging the office visit to a date in the future other than that desired by the patient, client, or other person.